Although Bruce Ohr testified before Congress behind closed doors on Tuesday, Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) spoke to reporters during session breaks and provided some clues to his testimony.

Gaetz told reporters “either Bruce Ohr is lying or Glenn Simpson is lying and, in another circumstance, it’s either Bruce Ohr is lying or Lisa Page is lying.”

When Issa was asked about the inconsistencies referred to earlier by his colleague, he said:

“It is significant. There’s also some ambiguity between Ohr and Lisa Page. And there’s no question at all. We’re going to have to go back through the loop to find out which one of them is willing to change their story or face perjury.”

Bruce Ohr acted as a liaison between former British spy Christopher Steele, the creator of the dossier, and the FBI. Ohr continued to meet with Steele after the FBI fired him for leaking to the press. Following these meetings, Ohr would formally brief officials at the FBI including none other than Peter Strzok.

(Note: Steele had been the source of Michael Isikoff’s dossier story in September 2016. The FBI then used Isikoff’s article to corroborate the information from the dossier included on their application to the FISA Court for a warrant to surveil Trump campaign advisor Carter Page. This process is called circular reporting.)

Prior to Ohr’s demotion, a consequence of the investigation into his meetings with Steele, he held the number four spot at the DOJ. He was the Associate Deputy Attorney General, and the Director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces. He is married to Nellie Ohr, who was hired by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson specifically to work on the dossier project.

When completing an FBI disclosure document, Ohr allegedly failed to disclose his wife’s position with Fusion GPS. (In his Tuesday testimony, however, Ohr said that he had disclosed this information.)

Regarding Ohr’s overall testimony, Issa said:

“Bruce Ohr is creating a link for us between people who had animus, who were, in fact, desperate to stop candidate Trump from being President Trump, both before and after he became the president-elect.”

“Before the election, our government was involved in [opposition] research against candidate Trump. After the election, after he was the president-elect, the famous ‘insurance policy’ went into effect that clearly led to the special prosecutor and the investigation we’re now seeing.”

“This is what we’re uncovering, the pre-Mueller activity that created an environment in which many people—myself included—were willing to deal with a special prosecutor, not knowing all the lies the American people and Congress had been told.”

“Although Bruce Ohr would appear to claim to be without partisan [ship], his wife, since 2015*, knowingly worked on ‘find dirt on Trump’ and ‘try to make this connection with the Russians,’ for which she was paid and he didn’t properly disclose.”

* Note: Reporter Jeff Carlson of The Epoch Times points out that Issa may have misspoken about the date Nellie Ohr went to work for Fusion GPS. Most outlets report she began in May or June of 2016.

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Issa believed that Ohr was “candid in his answers,” but has a “poor memory when it comes to certain details, such as in which month certain meetings took place.” Issa also said:

“Bruce has a poor memory, he seems to not remember a lot of details. Poor memories are often claimed by people who want to stick to what they can say and not be caught in perjury.”

“He, in fact, became part of an investigation that was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton, and pursued by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who obviously had real hate for the president.”

“The testimony also revealed that the FBI wanted to talk to Steele directly, even after they had fired him over his unauthorized contacts with the media.”

“It is also very clear, he became a backchannel—a willing backchannel—but then later, the FBI actually went back the other way, that they wanted to talk to him directly. In other words, even after they fired him, and he had no credibility, they produced FISA warrants that did not make clear his lack of credibility, they then re-engaged him in some direct fashion.”

Fox News reported that “no Democratic lawmakers appeared to attend Ohr’s hearing, though staff were in the room.”

Ohr’s testimony came on the heels of last week’s testimony of FBI official Jonathan Moffa. Moffa was part of “Mid-Year Exam,” the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server while serving as Secretary of State.

Following Moffa’s testimony, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) tweeted:

“We’ve learned NEW information suggesting our suspicions are true: FBI/DOJ have previously leaked info to the press, and then used those same press stories as a separate source to justify FISA’s. Unreal.”

Carlson reported that Meadows:

“…who has seen copies of the original Page FISA application and the three subsequent renewals says that instead of using an intermediary such as Steele [used Isikoff], Meadows is stating FBI and DOJ officials directly leaked information to the press themselves, and then used the reporting on that leaked information to obtain and/or justify FISA warrants. In essence, Meadows is claiming the FBI engaged in an even more direct form of circular reporting—without the use of Steele as an intermediary.”

“Jonathan Moffa made it clear to the committee the FBI routinely uses media reports to corroborate analytic work product. We have emails and texts plainly showing the FBI leaks to the media, raising major red flags. If FBI executives want the American people to believe they haven’t used leaks to their advantage, they are not being honest.”

This actually is not new news. The DOJ Inspector General’s report, released in June, makes the same claims.

“We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters.”

The IG report also states: “FBI employees received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golf outings, drinks and meals.”

“We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review.”

The testimonies of Bruce Ohr and Jonathan Moffa simply add to the mountain of evidence supporting the left’s vast conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2016 election. The allegations widely reported this week (although referenced earlier), that a Chinese-owned company hacked into Hillary’s server and inserted code that enabled them to receive a duplicate “courtesy copy” of each of her emails, alone should trigger the appointment of a special counsel. (My post on that story can be read here.) Although President Trump has not exactly endeared himself to AG Jeff Sessions, it is Sessions’ duty to take off the rose-colored glasses, put aside Trump’s remarks and appoint a special counsel immediately.

Elizabeth Vaughn is a conservative political blogger and mom of three residing in southern Connecticut. Following a career in the financial services industry, she is now a regular contributor to Freedom Outpost. Contact her at eliza.vaughn13@gmail.com

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